You Did Well Today
by Aservis Roturier
Summary: "Young master, please...for you to say such things..." From the moment the butler said those words aboard the lifeboat, they'd started eating away at the young earl. For him to say such things...what? Meant what? What did Sebastian really mean?


"You Did Well Today"

The tall case clock was striking half nine, the evening meal was over and the dining room had been cleared. In any other grand household the men would be moving off to the smoking or billiards rooms to speak manly words about equally manly subjects to one another over port or something stronger and perhaps a good cigar, while the women socialised over needlework and suchlike distaff arts in the parlour. Below stairs ate their suppers, then washed up and squared away the kitchen for the evening.

But this was Phantomhive manor, so the staff was already finished with their day's work and were retiring like their little lord, who was already heading off to bed.

It had been a slow day: no call for the Queen's Guard dog, not a lot of paperwork, reading or even decision making called for by Funtom—they'd all expected him to still be on his holiday with the Middlefords aboard the ill-fated _HMS Campania_. Returning early had given Ciel time for a little introspection.

Interestingly, in the wake (as it were) of the sinking of the _Campania_, the thing that stuck in Ciel's mind most vividly was the way Sebastian had behaved in the lifeboat that night and the following morning.

When the sun had come up over the rim of the world, enough to turn the sky a delicate rose, Ciel had roused from the miserable, sodden doze he'd fallen into in the midst of desperately hanging onto the seats of the lifeboat while Sebastian batted and swung at the animated dead swarming through the water and up the sides of the boat. No one could fault his dedication, Ciel thought, how easy it would've been for him to sink to the ocean floor, use his senses to choose adirection and simply walk out of all this. Instead he faithfully kept standing between his little master and seemingly unavoidable mortal peril.

The last thing Ciel remembered had been looking up into the star-strewn darkness and seeing the silhouette of Sebastian, towering over him like a living colossus, laying about him right, left and centre with his bloodied oar, smashing undead heads like so many rotted pumpkins as they rose from the water and tried to clamber onto their little boat. Now, as he looked up at the lightening sky, he realised Sebastian was still standing, oar grasped in his hands like a singlestick, but now he was standing stock still. Ciel cautiously peered out over the rim of the lifeboat.

What met his eyes was a horror to exceed the worst nightmare: a becalmed, icy sea, frigid mist curling off its surface, chock-a-block with broken and floating body parts and lumps of ice. There was not a single head amongst the hundreds and hundreds of floating bodies which hadn't been bashed or torn off or cracked open by something distinctly oar-shaped.

_Every broken head and severed body part I'm looking at represents a blow Sebastian dealt in the night on my behalf,_ he thought, completely overwhelmed. Sebastian had done all that, battled all night long _in addition_ to the pitched battles he'd fought aboard the _Campania_ with zombies, shinigami and worst of all, the terrifyingly unstoppable Undertaker who hadn't just wounded the demon, he'd come close to splitting him in half like a grilled lobster. As it was he'd impaled him back to front right through the torso—a ghastly wound, the worst the demon had suffered in his service, and he suspected, the worst the demon had ever suffered, period.

It was an overwhelming thought. At any moment in the last 24 hours or so Sebastian could've decided it was all too much, game wasn't worth the candle, and let one of those monsters take his life. He could've still snatched the soul he was owed an d been full and well out of it. He could've even renounced the contract and walked away, turning his back on it all. Even more upsetting, Ciel had only just raised his eyes gratefully to the demon who had stood guard over him all night long, who'd seemingly shaken off even that terrible impalement and gone on to battle without rest until the sun rose, and just as Ciel was thinking it was over to hear the demon suddenly cry out in pain, buckle to his knees, groaning, shuddering and clutching at that still weeping wound.

Ciel hadn't thought he could feel any colder until he'd seen Sebastian driven to his knees. It struck a bitter chill deep into him in a way the ice-strewn ocean never could, to think his indomitable demon had finally been wounded by something he couldn't shake off in a few short hours. It suddenly felt like losing his parents then the fire and then waking up in that dank cellar cage all over again. Sebastian the impervious, the bullet-proof, the _immortal_, who had brought him out of that horrible cage was now writhing in pain in the bottom of the boat, a full half day after the blow had been struck. If that could happen, the demon was fallible_, _if that could happen,_ he could even die._

_A death scythe blow is quite tough even on someone like me,_ the demon had told him, still clutching his chest and abdomen and trying to gri through the pain. And given his gift for understatement (he was after all a very English sort of demon ), it could only mean the demon had come quite close to dying of that death scythe blow. Of course he had. The undertaker had taken quite a detailed look at at least the most recent parts of his cinematic record. How had Sebastian ever stayed on his feet and continued fighting after that—and why would he even want to?—with such a ghastly wound? Ciel never seemed to take the true measure of Sebastian's endurance, strength and ability to soldier on despite pain and injury. It was difficult to get one's head 'round, even after having witnessed it.

The first moment he got he asked the demon about it. He was actually still resting up—Ciel had insisted he do no work and be put into his own bed until there was a marked improvement. It wasn't just to honour the demon's sacrifices but also for Ciel's sake. He'd become terrified the demon would die in his sleep, though how Ciel being nearby could stop that, the boy had no answer. It did give him the chance to ask his questions though and he was quick to take advantage of that.

"But I don't understand how you were able to go on like that. Isn't...isn't it possible for you to die, Sebastian?"

"Certainly it's possible to be sent back to Hell empty and defeated. That's as near death as I'm ever likely to get, having attained this age and level of strength."

"So why didn't that blow from Undertaker's death scythe kill you? Or send you back to Hell like you said?"

"The young master ordered me to eradicate the creatures, not die in the attempt. Since I wasn't given leave to die, I survived," was his only offered explanation. It did not satisfy the earl. He really wasn't sure how literally to take that as an answer. He was doubtful his command could have _that_ much power over the demon's life. Mostly though he was just glad the demon hadn't died.

It was true Sebastian didn't lie. You'd never hear him speak a flat out lie such as 'I am _not_ a demon.' or 'in my opinion, dogs are the loveliest creatures on God's green earth and I wubb dem to deff." But he would at times fall silent if he preferred not to answer something and hope you'd get tired of waiting, fail to tell you a thing for his own reasons, answer questions with other questions, deaw Ciel's attention to something that embarrassed or angered him, change the subject, try talking you out of wanting to know, distract you (Look! Up in the sky: It's the Winged Victory of Samothrace! Oh, shame you missed it. You'll not soon see _that_ again!) or wiggle round things if wiggle room were allowed. Any time you asked and he answered you had to stop himself and ask '_now was that a proper, straightforward answer or something that avoided the main point?_' He would not lie, no. But he certainly _would and did_ prevaricate. Prevaricate like _mad. _If there were a competition for prevarication skills, Sebastian would have a chest full of gold medals.

_I should have compelled him to tell me the unvarnished truth at all times __as well__ as never lie. _Ciel realised in retrospect.

"I can't have the Phantomhive family butler staying like this. I want you to take a good rest when we get back to the mansion, Sebastian," and unable to put his grateful feelings into better words, he reached out and wrapped both arms about the butler's nearest leg and laid his head against the hard calf muscle hiding within the black fabric as he said earnestly "You did well today, Sebastian, _really_ well."

It was an odd moment, made even odder by the demon's reaction to those hard-earned words of acknowledgement. He'd only just managed to get his legs back under himself when he came crashing back down onto his knees in a heap, his normally bold eyes downcast, and behind his curtain of quirky, long fringes Ciel was certain he could see just the faintest of blushes and maybe a pair of tearing eyes.

"Young master, please. You must stop. For you to say such things..."

From the moment the butler said those words they'd started eating away at the young earl. For him to say such things...what? Meant what? Did what and to whom? What did they really mean? Was the earl such a grim, thankless taskmaster he never thought to tell his servants when they'd done well ... to the point that doing so now would unman the demon? Was it _that_ rare for the demon to be thanked for his efforts-even efforts as stupendous as those he'd accomplished in the _Campania_ disaster? He hoped that wasn't the case. That would just be far too sad. But if _not_ that, then what _did_ it mean?

He decided to ask his servant point blank. A few weeks after he'd resumed his normal work, at night, as Sebastian dressed him for bed was Ciel's carefully chosen moment. It was a quiet time, free from distractions, a good time for conversations meant to be kept private.

The demon didn't answer immediately, but spent a few extra moments smoothing out non-existent wrinkles in the boy's nightshirt, and straightening the tiny lace trim along the neck opening, avoiding both the question and the questioner's eyes.

"Is it because I am too hard a master Sebastian? Do I not give credit where credit is due often enough?" Ciel watched the butler's reaction to his words very carefully.

The demon laughed—it almost seemed he laughed in relief as he turned back the bedclothes and said, "My young lord's compliments and praises _are_ indeed rather scarce!" But there was something in those dark red eyes as they slithered away from contact with his own that made the boy carefully examine that answer. In fact, Ciel realised Sebastian hadn't said 'yes, my lord, that is the reason.' He'd only agreed that what the boy said had an element of truth to it. The boy waited to see if the demon would say more.

He didn't. Of course he didn't. He merely gathered the comforter and blankets into his two hands with a deep sigh and drew them up to the young boy's chin. But as his one hand reached out for the candelabrum, to leave, the boy captured the other, still resting on his chest by its narrow wrist and used it to draw the demon onto the bed with him.

When their faces were quite close he asked softly "That's not the real reason, is it, Sebastian: yes or no answer, nothing else."

After a moment of silence the demon answered "No my lord."

"The real reason, Sebastian, is you fear too strong an attachment," the boy guessed. "You fear the tender emotions like gratitude and other, even softer ones, and not just in me but in yourself as well, because they will make our final business ... difficult, maybe even impossible. That is the real reason, isn't it?"

A dusting of pale blush and crooked smile broke across the demon's face. His eyes stopped being so evasive.

"You understand me far better than I give you credit for, my lord. Please forgive this foolish servant of yours for underestimating you."

"It's all right, Sebastian. Everybody does it eventually." He let the demon's hand go. "I will respect whatever distance you feel is appropriate."

"Thank you for understanding, young master."

"Undertaker said he thought you brought nothing but misery to my life. I say what _that_ proves is just because you have someone's cinematic record doesn't mean you understand what you're looking at, the reasons for the actions. I judge you about as far from a source of misery as it's possible to get. Not going to go on and on about this because I don't want to make your taking your...your payment, at the end...difficult in any way. You've more than earned both it and my gratitude. I reckon this is the best way I can show it."

The butler straightened up with a warm smile. "You were always unique, young Master. You have always known what I was, yet never once did you treat me as though I were beneath you." Ciel wasn't certain this was so, but he kept silent. He could tell this was something the demon had intended on saying for quite some time now.

"You always have and still do show me the same respect you would if I were the same sort of creature as you." Ciel raised a finger to object but Sebastian merely took it in his hand and continued regardless.

"To a man, my previous masters all treated me brutally, beating and torturing me if I failed to please, even when it wasn't my fault. They put me in harm's way for their own entertainment, forcing me into pointless battles as one might a fighting cock or dog, or treated me as though I were an animal in other ways: not permitting me a place within their homes, often refusing to even permit me to enter their home as if I were no more to be trusted indoors than some barnyard animal. You, Ciel Phantomhive, have never done anything like that. My young master is easily the most honourable, admirable human I have ever contracted with and I am proud to serve him, fight for him, belong to him." The demon bowed deeply before extinguishing the candles and leaving the room, calling out a wish for a good night for him as he pulled the door closed behind himself.

"I am proud to belong to you as well, Sebastian," said the boy, thinking back to that figure standing over him in the lifeboat. "And I to you,"

He turned over, closed his eyes, slept, and felt no fear.


End file.
